Recently, in homes, corporations, offices, etc., electric equipments such as a television device, a video and/or audio record/replay device, an air conditioner, a lighting equipment, a copying machine, a printer, a multi functional machine, etc. have become widespread. These electric equipments have various devices for improving the operability. For example, electric equipments are configured to be remotely controlled.
However, since each electric equipment is operated by a remote controller corresponding to each electric equipment, the number of remote controllers increases with an increasing number of implemented electric equipments, thereby causing troublesome management of the remote controllers. In addition, since the arrangement, the operation method, etc. of the operation keys of each remote controller are different, it is very difficult to appropriately use the plurality of remote controllers.
Meanwhile, the ownership rate of mobile terminals such as a mobile telephone, a PHS (personal handy-phone system), PDA (personal digital assistants), etc. has largely risen. Thus, using the mobile terminals as the remote controllers of the above-mentioned electric equipments has been proposed (see for example, International Publication Pamphlet No. WO 01/802646, Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2005-151507, and Japanese Laid-open Patent Publication No. 2008-72269). Since various electric equipments can be operated using one of the proposed mobile terminals, the operability can be improved compared with the conventional case in which a plurality of remote controllers are used.
When the mobile terminal is used as a remote controller of the electric equipment as described above, it is necessary to make an association between each operation that a user does for the mobile terminal and each function implemented in each electric equipment in advance. This association is realized by using a association table to make a correspondence between operation information representing each operation for the mobile terminal and control information representing each function implemented in the electric equipment.
Specifically, in a configuration in which the mobile terminal manages the association table, when a user operates the mobile terminal, the mobile terminal identifies control information corresponding to accepted operation by referring to the association table, and transmits the identified control information to the electric equipment. The electric equipment performs a process of user operation taken on the mobile terminal by performing a process corresponding to the control information obtained from the mobile terminal.
In a configuration in which a server apparatus manages the association tables for respective electric equipments, when a user operates the mobile terminal, the mobile terminal transmits operation information representing accepted operation to the server apparatus. The server apparatus identifies control information corresponding to operation information obtained from the mobile terminal by referring to the association table, and returns the identified control information to the mobile terminal. The mobile terminal transmits the control information obtained from the server apparatus to the electric equipment. The electric equipment performs a process of user operation taken on the mobile terminal by performing a process corresponding to the control information obtained from the mobile terminal.
In the above configurations, a vender of the electric equipments has to generate the association table every time a new electric equipment is produced. In addition, a user is required to know which operation corresponds to which function in advance for each electric equipment. Furthermore, in the configuration in which the mobile terminal manages the association table, the association table must be registered every time a user purchases a new electric equipment.